Local youth pastor kick-starts music career

Dave Aubrey, worship and youth pastor at First Southern Baptist in Dover, recently released a CD of contemporary Christian music.

Sarah Barbansarah.barban@doverpost.comTwitter: @SarahDoverPost

When Dave Aubrey was in high school he had dreams of playing soccer at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., that is until he broke his collarbone in his senior year. Soccer was out of the question for the Syracuse, N.Y., native, but the Liberty component of the plan stuck. Aubrey graduated with bachelors in worship ministry in 2009.

During his senior year at Liberty he was assigned to do an internship at First Southern Baptist in Dover. The church liked him so much that they offered him a job and Aubrey spent every weekend of his last semester driving back and forth between Dover and Lynchburg.

He started full time as a youth and worship pastor at First Southern in June of 2009. His daily routine involved picking out music for Sunday services, giving guitar lessons and leading youth groups. It also involved writing songs for Sunday services.

"Pretty often people would come up to me after worship and say 'Oh who wrote that song, I want to download it off of iTunes' and I'd have to say well you can't exactly download it. I wrote it," Aubrey said.

In 2010 Aubrey decided to record a seven track album of his songs, so that he could have something to pitch to a Christian publishing company, who had expressed interest in having his songs recorded by some of their artists.

"It was a decent recording, I sold between 2,000 and 2,500 copies of the CD," he said.

Then things started to pick up. He kept writing songs and started to play shows, all while still working for First Southern Baptist.

In September, he started talking to Charles Billingsley and Adam Lancaster, from Red Tie Studios in Lynchburg and decided to put together a 10-track album. He spent six weeks this winter recording guitars and vocals, while Lancaster created background music. The tracks were then sent to Nashville, where a drummer and bassist added their parts, and the album was sent back to Red Tie where Lancaster added keyboard and strings.

"The album is really eclectic, there's a gospel song on there, an R&B song, a couple of poppy songs but it's mostly worship," he said.

The album was released on March 2 and Aubrey said he's sold 450 copies so far. He has a small tour of the Northeast lined up.

A few of his songs are already being played on the radio in Lynchburg and in his hometown. Despite his recent break into the music world, Aubery doesn't plan on being uprooted.

"I love what I do," he said. "The purpose of this was not to become a rock star.

"I never wanted to hop around," he added. "I wanted to invest myself in a community. I love the people. This is a place where I could see myself raising a family. I have great friends here."

Aubrey's album "Take it all" is available on iTunes, as well as through his website www.daveaubreymusic.com.